1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for treating the surface of a body to produce a surface-treated material which is suitably used as a constituting member for electric devices, electron devices, or especially as a substrate for the light receiving member in electrophotography.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have been used metal bodies in plate form, cylindrical form, endless-belt form or the like as a substrate for photoconductive members such as the light receiving member in electrophotography. And for such metal bodies, they are required to have an appropriate surface to be suited for their uses.
Because of this, a surface treatment by the grinding work with means of a diamond cutting tool using lathe, milling cutter, etc. has been carried out for the surface of a metal body. As the metal body, there has been generally used aluminum alloy as the most preferable one. And in the conventional technique, aluminum alloy is subjected to said surface treatment, and an appropriate light receiving layer is formed on the treated surface of the aluminum alloy in accordance with the use purpose.
However, there exist various problems in the conventional surface treating technique. That is, during the surface treatment by grinding work with means of a diamond cutting tool using lathe, milling cutter, etc. in the conventional surface treating technique, intermetallic compounds such as Si-Al-Fe series compounds, Fe-Al series compounds, TiB.sub.2 and the like, oxides of Al, Mg, Ti, Si and Fe and/or air holes due to H.sub.2 gas are often generated within the alloy texture. In addition to these problems, there is another kind problem that a surface defect such as level difference at grain boundary which generates between adjacent aluminum textures having different crystal orientations is often brought about.
Further, in the conventional technique, as for the aluminum alloy for use in obtaining an appropriate substrate, it is necessary to have an extremely clean surface. However, a film composed of oxides having a thickness of up to 30 .ANG. is apt to be easily formed on the surface of such kind aluminum alloy since its surface still remains active even under ultra-high vacuum condition of 10.sup.-9 mmHg.
Under these circumstances, a surface-treated material obtained in accordance with the known manner eventually becomes such that is likely to invite various problems and defects to the functions of a photoconductive member prepared by depositing a light receiving layer thereon.
For instance, in the case where it is a light receiving member for electrophotography, a light receiving layer formed on the surface of such material is apt to become such that is poor in layer uniformity and constituent homogeneity, and is unstable in electric, optical and photoconductive characteristics thereby bringing about defects in the images obtained.
This tendency is remarkable in the case where the light receiving layer is composed of an amorphous material consisting of silicon atoms or containing silicon atoms as the main constituent.